DE102016206317A1 - EVACUATION DRIVING ASSISTANCE DEVICE - Google Patents

Abstract

An evacuation driving assistance device includes: a stopping lane determining section that determines a stopping lane and an evacuation point on the stopping lane to which an own vehicle should urgently determine, when it is detected that the driver has a condition in which he can not drive the own vehicle properly, and a lateral position determination section that determines, as a stopper transverse position, a position in a lateral direction of the evacuation location on the stopping lane to ensure a space for the vehicle driver and passengers so that they can safely get in and out of the own vehicle on one side of the own vehicle.

Description

This application claims the priority of the filed on April 16, 2015 Japanese Patent Application No. 2015-84314 , the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference.

The present invention relates to a technique for evacuating an own vehicle upon detection of an abnormal consciousness of the driver of the own vehicle.

A method is known for evacuating an own vehicle to a roadside area using a driving assistance system to ensure the safety of the own vehicle and other vehicles when the driver's attention of the own vehicle decreases, for example because the driver is drowsy or if the driver for some reason fails Consciousness loses. Such a method is for example in JP 2007-331652 described.

However, since this method focuses its attention in determining a location for evacuation to avoid that the own vehicle obstructs the travel of other vehicles, there may be a problem that the own vehicle may be parked in a place where a guardrail or a wall is present, so that it may be difficult to evacuate a sick person from the own vehicle, or it may be difficult for the passengers to leave the own vehicle.

An exemplary embodiment provides an evacuation driving assistance device, comprising: a driver state determination section that determines whether or not a driver of an own vehicle has a state in which he can drive the own vehicle appropriately; an information acquiring section that acquires information about a state of the own vehicle and a state of an environment of the own vehicle; a holding lane determining section that determines a stopping lane and an evacuation point on the stopping lane at which the own vehicle should urgently be stopped on the basis of the information detected by the information acquiring section when the driver state determining section determines that the driver is not in the state he can drive the own vehicle appropriately; a lateral position determination section that determines, as a stopper transverse position, a position in a lateral direction of the evacuation location on the holding lane to ensure a space for the vehicle driver and passengers so that they can safely get in and out of the own vehicle on one side of the own vehicle; and an evacuation travel control section that causes the own vehicle to travel to the evacuation location, in response to the stop lane determined by the stop lane determination section and the stop lateral position determined by the lateral position determination section.

According to the exemplary embodiment, there is provided an evacuation drive assisting device that can cause a vehicle to travel to an evacuation location where the driver and passengers can safely get in and out without hindering the travel of other vehicles.

Other features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description made with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the drawings shows:

1 3 is a block diagram illustrating the structure of an evacuation driving assistance apparatus according to an embodiment of the invention and the structure of a device cooperating with the evacuation driving assistance apparatus;

2 FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating steps of an evacuation route determination process executed by the evacuation travel assist device; FIG.

3 an illustration illustrating a stop transverse position when an adjacent lane (a parallel track) on one side of a holding track is present;

4 an illustration for illustrating a stop transverse position when an adjacent lane (an opposite lane) on one side of a holding track is present;

5 a figure illustrating a stop transverse position when there is no adjacent lane on both sides of a holding lane and when there is an obstacle for getting in and out at the end of a ramp;

6 an illustration for illustrating a stop transverse position when there is no adjacent lane on both sides of a holding lane and when there is no obstacle for getting in and out; and

7 an illustration for illustrating a stop transverse position when an adjacent lane on each side of a holding lane is present.

(Preferred Embodiment)

Below is an evacuation driving assistance device 1 according to an embodiment of the invention with reference to the drawings. The in the 1 shown evacuation driver assistance device 1 serves to assist a vehicle driver to drive a vehicle (hereinafter referred to as the "own vehicle") to a safe evacuation location and park the own vehicle there in cooperation with a driver assistance system mounted on the own vehicle 2 if it is assumed that the driver can not drive the own vehicle properly.

The driver assistance system 2 has an all-speed ACC (Adaptive Cruise Control or Adaptive Cruise Control) device 21 , an LKA (lane keeping assist or lane departure) control device 22 , an LCA (Lane Change Assist) control device 23 and other driving assistance control devices 24 on. The driver assistance control devices 24 may include an anti-lock brake system, a collision damage reduction system or a stability control system.

These control devices 21 to 24 that the driving assistance system 2 are implemented as ECUs and via an on-board LAN with the evacuation drive assistance device 1 connected. Usually the control devices work 21 to 24 in accordance with orders or a driving activity of the driver. If, however, they are ordering an evacuation drive from the evacuation drive assistance device 1 receive, work in accordance with these commands. The control devices 21 to 24 For example, a data calculation required for a deceleration control, a lane keeping control, a lane change control, or a collision avoidance control takes into consideration the speed of the own vehicle, a lane route, the presence or absence of a preceding vehicle, and the like. The driver assistance system 2 controls various control objects on the basis of the results of the data computation so that the acceleration control, the brake control, and the steering control are executed for each of the control objects to achieve a desired motion control of the own vehicle. Because the various control devices that the driver assistance system 2 form, are not discussed in detail below.

Below is the evacuation drive assist device 1 described. The evacuation drive assistance device 1 has a map information acquisition section 11 , an own vehicle information acquisition section 12 , a surrounding information acquisition section 13 , a driver information acquisition section 14 , a driver state determination section 15 , an evacuation route determining section 16 and an evacuation drive control section 17 on.

The map information acquiring section 11 detects map information for an area that may be traveled by the own vehicle. The map information includes route guidance information (such as a curvature and a grade and their change points), lane information (such as the number of lanes and the lane type such as a lane, an overtaking lane, a gradient lane, an evacuation route, an edge strip, a left turn or Right turn lane, ingress lane, exit lane, and the like), connection point information (such as an intersection, a junction, a pedestrian crossing, a railroad crossing, and the like) and road boundary information (such as a guardrail, wall, side trench, jamb, a block, a fence, a slope and the like). This map information can be stored in a memory device in the own vehicle and / or detected from outside the own vehicle by data communication.

The own vehicle information acquisition section 12 detects, as own vehicle information, information about the state of the own vehicle. The own vehicle information includes information about the running state of the turn signal, the vehicle speed, the vehicle acceleration (deceleration) and the driving amount of steering the own vehicle obtained through sensor signals of a turn signal sensor, a speed sensor, an acceleration sensor and a steering angle sensor.

The environment information acquisition section 13 detects, as environment information, information about objects in the area of the own vehicle. The environment information includes information about a distance to each object, a relative speed of each object, a current position of each object, and the like, which is obtained from an image sensor, a radar sensor, a GPS sensor, a position sensor, and the like. The environment information further includes various information (the number of lanes and the traffic lane traveled by the own vehicle) that can be obtained from image-processed images provided by an image sensor.

The driver information acquisition section 14 detects, as driver information, information used for determining whether the driver has a condition in which he can drive the own vehicle appropriately. The driver information has information about the feature expression of the face or eyes of the driver, which is extractable from images of the driver, which are taken for example by a camera, on the steering angle, which reflects the driving activity of the driver directly and is detected by the steering angle sensor, and biological information, such as the blood pressure and body temperature of the vehicle operator, obtained from sensors worn by the vehicle operator.

The driver state determination section 15 determines whether or not the vehicle driver has a state in which he can drive the vehicle adequately by paying attention, ie the degree of attention of the driver on the basis of the driver information acquisition section 14 recorded driver information estimates.

The evacuation route determining section 16 determines an evacuation location where the own vehicle should be stopped and parked, and an evacuation route along which the own vehicle should travel to reach the evacuation location.

The evacuation drive control section 17 generates commands in accordance with the evacuation location, the lateral position of the evacuation location on an evacuation lane or a lane on which the evacuation location is determined, and the evacuation route provided by the evacuation route determining section 16 is determined. These commands are sent to the driver assistance system 2 sent to perform an evacuation control.

The evacuation drive assistance device 1 is composed of a microcomputer with a CPU, memories and the like. The functions of the various control sections described above are realized by software executed by this microcomputer.

Below is an evacuation route determining section 16 executed evacuation route determination process with reference to the in the 2 described flowchart described. This process is started when the driver state determination section 15 determines that the driver has a condition in which he can not drive the own vehicle properly and an evacuation drive is required.

This process starts in step S110 in which the evacuation route determining section 16 identifies the lane on which the own vehicle is traveling (hereinafter referred to as the traveled lane) and a plurality of candidate evacuation locations taking into consideration various risks on the basis of the map information acquired by the map information acquiring section 11 the own vehicle information acquired from the own vehicle information acquiring section 12 and the environment information acquired by the environment information acquiring section 13 is determined. Specifically, the evacuation route determining section determines 16 a plurality of locations within a range in which the own vehicle travels, if any, for each lane and for each of predetermined distances, and judges the evacuation route determining section 16 the risk levels of these locations from several different viewpoints, and determines the evacuation route determining section 16 several candidate evacuation sites that have relatively low risk levels. The risks to be assessed in determining the candidate evacuation locations include a risk that depends on a road course (a curved road, an intersection, and the like) and the environment (presence of, for example, a guardrail or barrier), a risk that occurs when the self-vehicle is stopped (a fast lane and a winding lane in poor visibility, for example, are risky), and a risk of continuing an evacuation drive for a long time.

In the subsequent step S120, an evacuation point and an evacuation route are determined on the basis of the map information, the own vehicle information and the environment information taking into consideration potential risks to reach the candidate evacuation locations determined in step S110. In particular, for each of the candidate evacuation locations, an optimal route having the lowest level of risk to reach the candidate evacuation location is detected. Subsequently, one of the candidate evacuation locations whose optimal route has the lowest risk level is determined as an evacuation location, and the optimum route to that particular evacuation location is determined as an evacuation route. The risks to be considered in determining the evacuation location and the evacuation route include a risk of route change (an abrupt route change or a curvy road route change is risky) and a risk of a stop (a location requiring heavy braking to stop, is risky).

The method of determining such an evacuation location and evacuation route based on the risk levels is for example in the JP 2014-112900 described in more detail. Accordingly, this process is not discussed in detail below.

In the subsequent step S130, it is determined whether or not adjacent lanes exist on both sides of the evacuation lane (the lane where the evacuation location determined in step S120 exists). When the determination result in step S130 is affirmative (YES), the process proceeds to step S140, and otherwise, the process proceeds to step S150. Herein, the adjacent lanes include the own lane (the traffic lane traveled by the own vehicle) and the opposite lane. However, if the own vehicle can not drive the opposite lane because there is a median strip or the like, this opposite lane is not considered to be the adjacent lane.

In step S140, a position in the width direction of the evacuation lane at which the own vehicle should stop (this position is hereinafter referred to as the "stop transverse position") is set to the center of the evacuation lane. Subsequently, this process is terminated. In step S150, it is determined whether or not an adjacent lane exists only on one side of the evacuation lane. When the determination result in step S150 is affirmative (YES), the process proceeds to step S160, and otherwise, the process proceeds to step S170.

In step S160, a position where a space of a required size for getting in and out of the own vehicle between the own vehicle and the edge of the evacuation lane on the side on which no adjacent lane exists can be determined as the stopper transverse position , Subsequently, this process is terminated.

The required size of the space for getting in and out of the own vehicle is determined depending on the type of doors of the own vehicle (such as swing door or sliding door). In step S170, it is determined whether or not there is an obstacle for getting in and out at the left edge of the evacuation lane. The obstacle to getting in and out may be an artificial structure such as a guardrail or wall, or a natural obstacle such as a slope.

When the determination result in step S170 is affirmative (YES), the process proceeds to step S180, and otherwise, the process proceeds to step S190. In step S180, a position where a space for getting in and out of the own vehicle between the own vehicle and the left edge of the evacuation lane can be ensured is determined as the stopper transverse position. Subsequently, this process is terminated.

In step S190, a position at which a space for getting in and out of the own vehicle between the own vehicle and the right edge of the evacuation lane can be ensured is determined as the stopper transverse position. Subsequently, this process is terminated.

According to the above-described evacuation driving assistance device 1 For example, when an adjacent lane is present only on one side of the evacuation lane, a position at which a space for getting in and out of the own vehicle between the own vehicle and the edge of the evacuation lane on the side opposite to the adjacent lane can be ensured determines the stop transverse position, as it is in the 3 and 4 is shown. That is, when there is an adjacent lane, a space for getting in and out of the own vehicle can be ensured while ensuring a space for other vehicles for driving. In this case, the driver and the passengers can safely get in and out of the own vehicle without hindering the travel of other vehicles.

If there is no adjacent lane on either side of the evacuation lane and there is an obstacle on the left edge of the evacuation lane, the stop transverse position is determined to give priority to ensuring an entry and exit space in the own vehicle, as described in US Pat 5 is shown. On the other hand, if there is no adjacent lane on both sides of the evacuation lane and there is no obstacle for boarding and disembarking the own vehicle at the left edge of the evacuation lane, the stopper transverse position is determined to give priority to ensuring a running range for other vehicles, such as as it is in the 6 is shown. This is because if there is no obstacle to getting in and out of the own vehicle at the left edge of the evacuation lane, the vehicle driver and the passengers of the own vehicle also move when the own vehicle is pulled over to the left edge of the evacuation lane and parked there in which own vehicle can easily get on and off. In a situation where the driver and the passengers can easily get in and out of the own vehicle, although sufficient space for getting in and out can not be ensured, since a driving range for other priority vehicles is ensured, a hindrance can occur the ride of the other vehicles are prevented.

In more rare cases, where there are adjacent lanes on both sides of the evacuation lane, the center of the evacuation lane is determined as the stop transverse position. This is because, when there are adjacent lanes on both sides of the evacuation lane, a space for getting in and out of the own vehicle and a space for other vehicles for driving can be ensured without pulling the own vehicle to an edge of the evacuation lane.

(Further embodiments)

The embodiment described above is, of course, modifiable in various ways, as shown below.

In the above embodiment, the evacuation location and the evacuation route are determined considering the various risks. However, a location meeting predetermined criteria within a predetermined distance to the own vehicle may be determined as the evacuation location.

The preferred embodiment described above serves as an example of the invention of the present application, the scope of which is directed to the appended claims. It should be understood that these modifications of the preferred embodiment may be made within the knowledge and experience of those skilled in the art of the application.

Above, an evacuation driving assistance device is described.

An evacuation driving assistance device includes: a stopping lane determining section that determines a stopping lane and an evacuation point on the stopping lane to which an own vehicle should urgently determine, when it is detected that the driver has a condition in which he can not drive the own vehicle properly, and a lateral position determination section that determines, as a stopper transverse position, a position in a lateral direction of the evacuation location on the stopping lane to ensure a space for the vehicle driver and passengers so that they can safely get in and out of the own vehicle on one side of the own vehicle.

QUOTES INCLUDE IN THE DESCRIPTION

This list of the documents listed by the applicant has been generated automatically and is included solely for the better information of the reader. The list is not part of the German patent or utility model application. The DPMA assumes no liability for any errors or omissions.

Cited patent literature

• JP 2015-84314 [0001]
• JP 2007-331652 [0003]
• JP 2014-112900 [0030]

Claims (5)

Evacuation assistance device with: A driver state determination section that determines whether or not a driver of an own vehicle has a state in which he can drive the own vehicle appropriately; An information acquiring section that acquires information about a state of the own vehicle and a state of an environment of the own vehicle; A holding lane determining section that determines a stopping lane and an evacuation point on the stopping lane at which the own vehicle should urgently be stopped on the basis of the information detected by the information acquiring section when the driver state determining section determines that the driver is not in the state he can drive the own vehicle appropriately; A lateral position determination section that determines, as a stopper transverse position, a position in a lateral direction of the evacuation location on the holding lane to ensure a space for the driver and passengers to safely enter and exit the own vehicle on one side of the own vehicle; and An evacuation travel control section that causes the own vehicle to travel to the evacuation location in response to the stop lane determined by the stop lane determination section and the stop lateral position determined by the lateral position determination section. 7. An evacuation assistance apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that, when an adjacent lane is present on one side of the holding lane, the lateral position determining section determines, as the stop lateral position, a position that is between the own vehicle and an edge opposite to the adjacent lane of the holding lane and at which a space for getting in and out of the own vehicle is guaranteed. An evacuation driving assistance device according to claim 1, characterized in that, when there is no adjacent lane on both sides of the holding lane and an obstacle for boarding and disembarking the own vehicle at a left edge of the holding lane, the lateral position determining section, as the stopper transverse position Determined position, which is located between the own vehicle and a left edge of the holding track and on which a space for getting in and out is ensured in the own vehicle. An evacuation assisting apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that when there is no adjacent lane on both sides of the stopping lane and no obstacle for getting in and out of the own vehicle at a left edge of the holding lane, the lateral position determining section than the stopper transverse position Determined position, which is located between the own vehicle and a right edge of the holding track and at which a space for getting in and out is ensured in the own vehicle. An evacuation driving assistance apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that, when adjacent lanes exist on both sides of the holding lane, the lateral position determining section determines, as the stopper transverse position, a center of the holding lane.

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